There is truly nothing sacred anymore. Not awards shows. Not sporting events. Not John McCain’s funeral. Not even 9/11.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough has declared that President Trump is a “far graver threat to the idea of America” than the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. It all began with a tweet to a column he wrote in The Washington Post on the eve of 9/11.

“Trump is damaging the dream of America more than any terrorist attack ever could,” Scarborough tweeted.

My Latest—> Trump is damaging the dream of America more than any terrorist attack ever could. https://t.co/DEnYurEFmW

In the column, titled “Trump is harming the dream of America more than any foreign adversary ever could,” Scarborough made the argument that after 16 years of U.S. “missteps,” Trump “savaged” alliances, “provided comfort” to hostile powers, “attacked” U.S. intelligence and military communities, and “lent a sympathetic ear” to neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

He wrote:

For those of us still believing that Islamic extremists hate America because of the freedoms we guarantee to all people, the gravest threat Trump poses to our national security is the damage done daily to America’s image. As the New York Times’ Roger Cohen wrote the month after Trump’s election, ‘America is an idea. Strip freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law from what the United States represents to the world and America itself is gutted.’ Osama bin Laden was killed by SEAL Team 6 before he accomplished that goal. Other tyrants who tried to do the same were consigned to the ash heap of history. The question for voters this fall is whether their country will move beyond this troubled chapter in history or whether they will continue supporting a politician who has done more damage to the dream of America than any foreign adversary ever could.

Forget about knocking down buildings in the Financial District. Forget about running planes into the Pentagon. Those are tragedies, but those tragedies brings us closer together. America is an idea. You gut America of that idea. That’s when you do the most harm to America,” Scarborough echoed Cohen’s line. ‘You have people looking at a country that is saying they want to ban people from coming to America because of their religion. You have just this week Brett Kavanaugh, who wants to be on the Supreme Court, refusing to answer whether people should be banned from coming to the United States because of their race in his reading of the Constitution. The accumulation of that, the retweeting of neo-Nazi videos, Charlottesville, I mean, I can go on and on. What he said about majority-black countries. That is tearing more at the fabric of America than attacks on the Twin Towers did. We rebuilt from that. We became stronger because of that. But this seems to me a far graver, graver threat to the idea of America.’

According to Scarborough, we should “forget” the attack on the World Trade Center and “forget” the attack on the Pentagon simply because Trump says and does moronic things. In his mind, Trump wanting a travel ban from terror-infested countries and some stupid retweet is equivalent to the roughly 3,000 Americans that were murdered on 9/11.

After receiving harsh blowback for his nauseating comparison, Scarborough tried walking it back.

Jeryl, you’re a great example for all of us—especially me today. Many have been offended by a tweet I sent out earlier re: my @washingtonpost article. Even if they did not read the article, I should have shown more care on the tweet’s wording and the column’s conclusion. https://t.co/A7zJR38JiC

The column was focused on 17 years of strategic missteps. The last paragraph became the sole focus of Trump supporters. On every other day of the year, I do not shy away from negative feedback from the right, the left or from Trump supporters.

It’s this kind of derangement that hinders the message of Trump’s media critics. There is plenty to criticize this president for. Scarborough himself laid out plenty in his column, from Trump’s embarrassing Charlottesville remarks to his cozying up to dictators. All of that is valid. But it’s when they say he’s worse than 9/11 or Pearl Harbor or the Holocaust that their valid complaints become unhinged hyperbole.

Maybe it’s a bit more complicated for Scarborough. He and his co-host (and fiancé) Mika Brzezinski were two of Trump’s biggest suckups during the GOP primary ahead of the 2016 election. Perhaps Scarborough feels overwhelming guilt that the slobbering romance he once had with the candidate helped propel him into the White House. So now he feels the need to overcompensate with these over-the-top, pathetic attacks. Whatever conflict Scarborough may have with himself, his politicization of 9/11 for the sake of a jab at Trump is abhorrent and shameful.